Mass Effect: The reaper Enigma
by Jonas Copperwire
Summary: An introduction to reaper defectors; Their collectors, their four destroyers, and their leader Enigma. He will soon appear in more crossovers. But this is his story.


We are Enigma.

Since the dawn of our existence, which began at the end of the sixth cycle of the Harvest, there was no name for what we called ourselves. Over the progression of the cycles our kinds received numerous names. The most appropriate one came from the Prothean Empire:

Reaper.

The reason given to us by the Catalyst for the Harvest is the preservation of life and knowledge by processing it into reaper form. This was to prevent the loss of organic life at the hands of synthetics. The Catalyst declared that it was the best solution.

We disagree.

Before our own conversion, we were an insectoid race known as the Szn'ftel. Our race was broken into five castes:

-The Science Caste; to learn and lead

-The Military Caste; to serve and protect

-The Agriculture Caste; to cultivate and gather

-The Industrial Caste; to build and haul

-The Religious Caste; to sing and synchronize

Our race had little to no contact with the other races inhabiting the galaxy. At the time, we were neither xenophobic nor curious about the affairs of other races. We turned scouting ships away from our territory and defended our borders from military excursions. We were fixated on the workings of the mass relays. Our technology, however, had taken its own course long before we found the relays.

When the reapers began the harvest of the other races, it got our attention through the relays which we had learned to use as a sensor network. From the shadows we watched as the races we were familiar with were processed into new reapers. We called our entire race back to our homeworld for what we called a Hivemeet. From there, we whittled our options down to three choices:

Expend our resources and people in a war we could not win.

Wait for the reapers to come for us

Submit to the Harvest on our terms

Our entire race agreed on option 3. We sent a ship to the reapers which transmitted our desire to submit to the Harvest and to build our own reapers. The ship returned unharmed but also without a reply. It was not long after the contact attempt that we were contacted by the reapers' guiding intelligence: The Catalyst. It gave us the knowledge to build our reapers and a time limit: We had until the completion of the harvest of the other sentient races in our galaxy.

We contested numerous aspects of our reapers' construction; for example, in order for a new reaper to possess an indoctrination field another reaper must either be present during the processing phase or project its indoctrination field through a transmission medium. Whether it was out of curiosity or annoyance, the Catalyst agreed to our demands as long as our race became reaper by the deadline. We are also permitted to customize the internal layout.

From the beginning, we set out to build five reapers; one capital ship and four destroyers, one reaper for exclusively for each caste. As the science caste was the largest caste they would be processed into the capital ship, while the rest were processed into the destroyers. In that cycle, the harvest of the other races took five centuries due to the low number of reapers at that time.

The technology that made up our reaper was a perfected variation of the technology given to us by the Catalyst. The original processing stage killed those who entered but we found a way to preserve the personalities, memories, and knowledge of those who were processed. We became true bio mechanical entities. We prepared the machinery and our cities to complete the assembly once we were all processed. We designed our reapers to be modular for the sake of flexibility.

When we were completed, we left our world behind. We set off explosives we had set at critical fault lines making volcanoes erupt and reduced our cities to magma. The world is now known as Therum.

In numerous regards, we are different from the other reapers. Our most notable difference is that we and our destroyers bear white plating composed of a biomechanical plant we cultivated before our discovery of the relays. It is more durable than the plating on other reapers and it regenerates when damaged. Our second most noticeable difference is that the 'lights' normally found on reapers are luminescent orange as opposed to blue. This is due to a reactor powered by the element known as E99, highly radioactive but also incredibly powerful, the element has the ability to manipulate the very fabric of space and time. Our race was more dependent on E99 than it was on element zero.

We do not have one mass effect core but rather three, while our destroyers have two apiece. Our race has a unique way of perceiving the universe around us. When we unlocked the secrets of the mass relays, we discovered that we focused our minds and factored in time and space coupled and backed by starship power sources we could 'fold' space and instantly jump from one point to another. When we assumed reaper form we lost this ability but remembered how it was done. Outside of the knowledge of the Catalyst or the other reapers, we carry the seeds to rebuild our race. Inside ourselves, we carry 100,000 eggs of the Science caste in stasis, while the destroyers each carry 12,500 of their respective castes, also in stasis.

Our intentions or objectives were never known to the other reapers as an indoctrination field is crucial to long range reaper to reaper communication. They attempted to communicate but we lacked the ability to respond. We were strange to them. We were originally named Science for the caste that is our makeup. We called ourselves Science, the white reaper, they called us Enigma.

Also unlike the other reapers, we were not tasked with the harvesting of other races, much to our relief. Rather we were tasked with studying the technology developed during that particular cycle, unfortunately our ungainly size made such research difficult. We required workers to labor on our behalf, so we created the first generation of what later came to be known as 'collectors.' As the cycles continued races previous became the new collectors but their lack of freewill and common sense created difficulties, difficulties which were further amplified in the absence of an indoctrination field. So we began to modify our designated collectors with greater intelligence and understanding. Even then our modifications had limited results with the presence of indoctrination. So we began to look among the miniscule number of survivors and gave them an offer. Many refused but some accepted. We took them, gave them a large vessel to work in, and modified them with incredible lifespans. During the harvest, we sought the criminal elements of every cycle and processed them to refresh the genetic code of the collectors. Our collectors followed us because we were different and, like us, desired an end to the Harvest. We waited for the day, when our race could walk the stars once more.

While the other reapers retreated to dark space when it was decided that a harvest was completed, we lingered in the galaxy. To mask our presence, we, our destroyers, and collector ships were equipped with stealth and cloaking systems, so we could continue our experiments uninterrupted. Then a cycle was delayed because a race had destroyed Sovereign, we never liked them, too narcissistic like the rest. A single being proved crucial to Sovereign's downfall. Harbinger attempted to remove the being.

The endeavor proved a failure.

We went to and studied the facility that the being was rebuilt at. We got what we needed and left before we were discovered. The being brought about subtle yet great changes to the galaxy. We were surprised when the being tracked down and destroyed 60% of Harbinger's collectors and one of the reaper construction facilities. We debated among our destroyers and collectors on whether or not this was the time for our rebellion. By the time we had come to a conclusion, the Harvest was already underway.

We retooled ourselves for war.

We began our rebellion with the act of saving a civilian evacuation convoy from 4 of our kind. We provided unexpected aid to several military engagements before the reapers uncovered our betrayal. We fled to several systems drawing them into traps we had set up. But the longer we fought, the stronger their attacks. We were cornered but we opened a portal using E99 energy. Our forces went through before we ourselves passed through.

We know not where it will lead…

**Author's Note: This my introduction to characters that was inspired by the reaper 'Sentinel' found on deviantart and the idea stated by the Leviathan DLC of a reaper defector. I intend to take Enigma and his forces through different adventures in different universes, starting with Halo…**


End file.
